The Iron Ship (60 page)

“They’ll sort themselves out. The filth will come out when they moult.” Julion yanked a fistful of fur from the flank of one dog. Its head snapped round and it showed its teeth.

“See? It’s coming out already.”

“Be a bit more careful with them and they might like you more.”

“Shut up, you,” said Julion. He threw handfuls of offal mixed with grain on the floor. The dogs snarled and scrapped with one another for the food. All except Rusanina and her consorts. She waited for a bucket to be placed before her, and her mates waited until she had finished eating before taking what was left.

“It’s been a frustrating winter for them,” said Julion. “Dogs like this are bred to snow, and we’ve had them doing nothing. We’ll soon have you back at it my lovelies, don’t worry.”

Rusanina curled her lip at him.

“Not very talkative today, are you?” said Tuvacs.

“No,” said Rusanina, and bent to her meal.

“It hurts them,” said Julion. “Dog throats were never made to make men’s sounds. Magic meddling with the right order of things.”

“Seems normal enough to me,” said Tuvacs. His Karsarin had also improved over the winter, and only a trace of his Mohacin accent remained.

“That’s because you don’t know everything, no matter what Boskovin says.”

Rusanina butted Julion, nearly dropping him in the icy mud.

“Oi!” he said.

“They still like me better,” said Tuvacs.

“Don’t get cocky,” said Julion.

A train whistle blasted in the far distance. Tuvacs stood on his tiptoes. Far to the south, threads of white and black hung on the air.

“Oh for fuck’s sake, the fucking train’s fucking early!” said Julion. “We better get our lunch now, because Boskovin’s going to want us to meet the bloody thing. The man’s a slave driver when he gets the wind behind him.”

They worked hard for the rest of the day.

A
FTER THE CHILL
day, the warmth of Tuvacs’ tent home was welcome, but the warmth of Suala was more so. They briefly made love, and lay a long time entwined under the heaped furs of their bed.

“I am going to miss winter,” said Tuvacs.

Suala stroked his face. “Why? It is cold and dark. Now is the time for new things to grow. It is a fine time of the year.”

“It has been too cold to do much of anything all winter except work and hide in bed screwing,” he said. He coloured saying the word. Profanity had never come easily to him. Suala’s language was liberally peppered with such expressions.

She gave him a playful slap, then drew him close.

“There will be other winters.”

“Not soon enough.” He nuzzled her and breathed deep her scent. Sweat, woodsmoke and woman. “Why don’t you come with me?”

“You know why. The rail camp is not safe. Too many men, too few women. I have to stay here. My grandmother will return from our village, we start work again. Many new workers will arrive soon.”

“How far is your village?”

“It is not far, and it is not close.”

She was maddeningly evasive about her home. He had never had more of an answer to his questions about it than that.

“You could come with me. Your grandmother is too old to work surely. Let her rest. Come with me. I will keep you safe. I spend all my time in the boxcar, it’s not like I’m out at the rail head laying rails ten hours a day.”

“My grandmother does what she must. She has a gift, and must use it.”

“Can’t she use it at home?”

“No.” She drew his hand down onto her belly. “And it is not only me who must keep safe.”

She pressed his hand onto her belly below her navel. The skin there was smooth, pleasingly rounded, soft and warm.

His eyes widened as he realised what she was telling him. “No!”

She bit her lip, fearful for his reaction, but her eyes glowed. “Now is the time for new things to grow.”

“I...”

“You are not pleased?”

“I, why, I... Of course I am pleased.” He sat up suddenly, lifting the covers from their bodies. Cold air slipped between them, prickling their flesh. She drew them back down. “I am young to be a father, seventeen, I think. Perhaps eighteen. No more than that.”

“Older than some, not young for my people.”

“And what will they say?” He turned back to her. “What will they do to you?”

Disappointment at his reaction deadened her smile. She shrugged. “Nothing. What wrong is there in two people falling in love and making a child? Is this a problem in your land?”

He rubbed his face. “Sometimes. Not always. It’s complicated. In some of the Hundred it is a big problem. In others not.”

“It is a strange world you are from, Tuvaco.”

He smiled broadly at her, dropped back down to one elbow. “I want to show you it all. And him.”

He gently brushed his fingers against her stomach.

“You are happy?”

“How could I not be? I love you.” She smiled in relief and put her arms around his neck.

“It might be a her.”

“That it might be,” he said. “I must get Boskovin to write to Lavinia to tell her she will be an aunt.” He felt a sudden pang of guilt. His sister was well, so he was told, but she was far away and alone.

Suala’s kisses pushed his concern for his sister away. Five minutes later he had forgotten it altogether.

CHAPTER FORTY-FIVE

Out to Sea

“H
ANG ON
! H
ANG
on!” shouted Trassan, belting his dressing gown about his waist. The knocker banged hard again. He came off the stairs into the hallway, gasping as his feet hit freezing tiles. He made it to the door, opened it a crack. He closed it again, and undid the security chains before opening it wide.

Garten was upon the step, dressed in his uniform of office.

“Can I come in then? It’s perishing out here.”

“What the hells do you want at this time in the morning?” Trassan looked up and down the street. The sky was still dark, glimmer lamps burned. The street, wide and lined with fine townhouses, had upon it only those whose work took them about in the early hours: grocers, coal merchants, collectors of the pure taking advantage of the lull in the traffic, rag and bone men and the like. “And what the hells time is it anyway?”

“Five of the clock.”

“What?”

“I thought you would probably want this.”

Garten held out an envelope. A heavy seal of purple wax with four ribbons closed the back.

Trassan blinked and took it. “The licence?”

“What else? Now can I come in? I could have gone home to bed, but I know how important this is. The least you could do is give me a mug of tea.”

Trassan cracked open the envelope and skimmed the contents. “Yes, yes, come in, come in!” He waved his brother through the door and shut it behind them. “My apologies, brother, but my maid is away on some family errand or other. Something to do with her mother, I forget.”

“You should get more.”

“I don’t like big households, makes it hard to think, all that racket,” said Trassan.

They went downstairs into the kitchen. Garten sat at the table, laying his hat and gloves upon its scrubbed surface. Trassan lit a candle and fussed about reviving the stove. He unbanked the embers, dropped kindling upon it, and had a merry blaze going in short order. He arrayed lumps of coal around it, and shut the door. He removed the covering hotplate from the top and placed a kettle of water in its place, its bottom exposed directly to the fire.

“You’ll have to wait ten minutes for the coal to catch,” Trassan said.

“You were always going to get the licence.”

“Yes.”

“And I’m sorry I could not simply give it to you. You know... Procedure.”

“Procedure. What do I need to do?” said Trassan.

“Sign the chit at the bottom of the final sheet, and the licence. Give the chit to me, keep the licence.”

“That simple?”

“Not everything in my work is complicated.”

Trassan hunted out a pen and inkpot. He made to sign quickly, but Garten caught his wrist.

“Before you do, there is something I should tell you.” Trassan paused. Garten released him. “You are getting this licence at this time in the morning because it has been hurried through. News came from Perus yesterday that the High Legate’s sickness has taken a turn for the worst. He has become erratic. It looks like he will be removed.”

“You can’t just wait for him to die?”

“That was the idea, but no. These are dangerous times. Shortly I will be away to Perus with Duke Abing, after months of waiting. The Assembly of Nations of the Hundred is already gathering. Consequently, the inquiry into this licence has been sped on. Prince Alfra is keen that you beat the Maceriyans to the Sotherwinter continent.”

“And? What does all this mean apart from the fact that I’ve been kept waiting for fucking ever by purple bloody ribbons?” He flapped the ribbons on the envelope at his brother.

“We have adhered to the conditions of our agreement with the Sunken Realm as best we can. But we are pushing it, Trass. Between you and me, I do not think that this licence will appease the king under the water.”

Trassan laid his pen down. “So, I sail away into danger, having waited on tenterhooks for the whole winter, just so the big hats up in the Three Houses can let me die with a clear conscience?”

“It’s not quite like that?”

“The fuck it’s not!”

“There is more to this than you, brother,” said Garten, his demeanour hardening. “Provoke the Sunken Realm, and we are at war. As we have followed the letter of our treaty, that will not happen.”

“But my safety is not guaranteed.”

“No. Come on, you knew this. You built your ship to cross the Drowning Sea in the face of his majesty’s objections. You would have gone, treaty or not. This way, you can do so without plunging the entire nation into danger with the king of the drowned dead.”

Trassan looked at the document. “All that, for this. I was hoping that the wait would bring me some advantage.”

“I’m sorry. That’s the way it has to be. I have worked very hard on your behalf brother, just for this.”

Trassan took up his pen. He stared at the sheet a moment before signing. He blew on the ink to dry it, then tore off the chit and handed it to his brother. Garten folded it once, and tucked it into his inside pocket. He held out his hand. Trassan took it, and they shook.

“Are we square?”

Trassan nodded. “Not worth falling out over.”

Garten flashed a quick smile. “I’ve not heard our old expression for a long time.”

“That’s because we’ve not had anything to fall out over for years.”

“I suppose not.”

Trassan’s eyes narrowed and he held his brother’s hand tightly. “We came close this time, Garten. Very close.”

T
HE END OF
the shed had been dismantled. The
Prince Alfra’s
prow pointed at a tall opening ablaze with sunlight. Men waited tensely about the dockside and ship, hands at ropes and windlasses. From the wheelhouse, Captain Heffi looked onto the foredeck, his command crew ready. A brass band stood beneath the window. Bunting hung in bright swags from the five masts.

On the roof of the ship’s superstructure, Trassan gripped the rail. Behind him were Veridy, Arkadian Vand, his father, Garten, Aarin, Tyn Gelven, and many others. His attention was only for the vessel, not even Ilona, glaring at him from her father’s side, could distract him. A hundred men looked to him expectantly. Total silence in a shed where for nigh on two years there had been nothing but ceaseless industry. For the first time since the shed’s erection, wind blew within. He could hear the murmur of crowds out on the dockside; the cries of seagulls. Everything retreated, until there was only he and his ship. A fierce, overwhelming pride took him. His flesh tingled at the thought of what he was about to do.

He stood tall and raised a hand. Two hundred pairs of eyes followed him. “All clear!” he shouted.

“All clear!” came an answering voice from the deck.

“All clear!” came a third from the dockside. A bell rang frantically. Before the prow of the ship, huge windlasses were turned by teams of dockers, dragging sluice gates up toothed tracks.

With a spurt that became a swift flow, the waters of the dock flooded the drydock. By the gates the fall whipped up a scummy foam. Toward the far end the flood’s fury was spent feebly against stone walls, and it swirled with oily rainbows.

For five minutes the water poured in, the initial waterfall rush choked off as the level reached the gates and the inflow became a bubbling upon the surface. The water rose black and sinister and choked with trash. Men waited by winches to take the strain on the ropes and chains of the ship.

A tremor ran through the hull; a whisper of excitement from the people. Trassan held the rails tightly. Here was the moment of truth. A long, metallic groan sounded from the
Prince Alfra
as it lifted. Seamen and dockers erupted into noisy activity as they worked to keep the ship from banging into the sides.

The ship groaned and rose higher and higher. Dockmen payed out their ropes. The ship shifted slightly to the right. Dock chiefs bellowed orders, chains rattled, and the drift was arrested. Another bell rang. At the bow the gates to the wider docks opened. Shouts came back the length of the ship, one man to another.

“The gates are open!”

Heffi’s First Officer, Volozeranetz, stepped up to Trassan. “Goodfellow, I report the gates are open,” he said formally, “we may depart.”

Trassan turned around and nodded to Arkadian Vand. The engineer bent to a speaking tube at his side and spoke into it.

“Captain Heffira-nereaz-Hellishul vovo Balisatervo Chai Tse-ban, take us out.”

Moments later, the ship shuddered. White steam leaked from its three funnels. Blue glimmerlight glowed from the top of each. With a ferocious churning, the paddlewheels either side of the ship spun, biting into the water. The ship’s horn hooted, a long and mournful sound. A loud cheer from outside answered. The brass band struck up a stirring air. Slowly, the
Prince Alfra
emerged from its drydock into the greater docks of Karsa City. A bright spring day greeted them. A stiff breeze kept the fumes of industry at bay, and the sun was bright and warm.